The fat lady sings!

[Blue Foam]

343.4 mph.



IO-550, no turbos, no ADI, no grenade happy tuning, and no quarter-million-dollar engines. Faster than any other Sport Class airplane not using ADI except the lone TM. Lots of turbo guys are pulling their cowlings tonight and dialing up the boost.

Just a Beluga belly and the best detail work possible. Mike Brown of Columbia Aviation did an incredible job of building the absolutely smoothest stock IO-550 in existence, maximizing the ram air, and cleaning up every possible bit of cooling drag.

There were lots of raised eyebrows when I put that fat belly on. Now they're furrowed. The fat lady has sung.

[Apteryx]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Appears to be Lee Behel's Legacy that Eric's excited about, in case you're wondering.

[Inverted]

Re: The fat lady sings!

hmmm. Is this confirmed?

[Inverted]

Re: The fat lady sings!

looks like it is! good speed for that setup!!!

[Blue Foam]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Appears to be Lee Behel's Legacy that Eric's excited about, in case you're wondering.

Yes, it's Race 5, Lee Behel. Lee also flew in the colder morning air when it was perfectly still and he's very, very good.

OTOH, this speed is 50 to 60 mph faster than a stock Legacy with the same engine, and 30 mph faster than before the belly and some other mods. While I love to watch the battle of the turbo-ADI engines, this is more impressive because no one would ever expect to see a 50+ mph gain without major power mods. The factory salesmen are convinced it's turbo'd. Nope. Reliable daily driver.

[PropFan]

Re: The fat lady sings!

I remembered that Lee didn't ever want to turbo his "daily driver", but when I saw the qual speed take a big jump up from last year, I guessed that he finally bit the bullet to stay in the Gold / Super Sport heat on Sunday.
But, now that Eric has the spilled the beans, I want the "rest of the story" !!! Who asked you (or paid you) to look for more speed in an already clean airframe? What is the basic aero concept? (interference, span loading, wave drag...???) Does anyone else have the mod?
Since I'm stuck in the midwest (again) this year, I want to see pictures !!!

PropFan

[Apteryx]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Curious about the belly mod. speed increase not withstanding, heard that it makes it twitcher to fly.
What does that mean is happening, and did you have the same result with Lee's

Paul

[BD4Flyer01]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Would somebody please post a picture of Lee's airplane showing this mod?

Thanks

[mayday51]

Re: The fat lady sings!

It looks like the used the fuse kit from Aerochia

http://www.aerochia.com/kits_Legacy_speedmod.html

....and other mods I'm sure....

[BD4Flyer01]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Thank you, Jim

[JoeCook1]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Here's a pic from Friday after the race, FWIW

[BD4Flyer01]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Thank you, Joe.

[Blue Foam]

Re: The fat lady sings!

It looks like the used the fuse kit from Aerochia

http://www.aerochia.com/kits_Legacy_speedmod.html

....and other mods I'm sure....

Ummm, no. My mod replaced Andy's and went faster. It was a challenging deign problem and took 4 tries to get it right.

LOTS of other work went into that speed this year, some engine, some aerodynamic. Some small things are extremely subtle and very powerful drag factors, the owner would prefer that we don't talk about them.

[Blue Foam]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Curious about the belly mod. speed increase not withstanding, heard that it makes it twitcher to fly.
What does that mean is happening, and did you have the same result with Lee's

Paul

Not true for the Beluga. Inboard wing root vortices that the mod cured can cause issues with the airflow over the tail and these can vary throughout the envelope causing handling issues.

[mayday51]

Re: The fat lady sings!

Ummm, no. My mod replaced Andy's and went faster. It was a challenging deign problem and took 4 tries to get it right.

LOTS of other work went into that speed this year, some engine, some aerodynamic. Some small things are extremely subtle and very powerful drag factors, the owner would prefer that we don't talk about them.

Thanks Eric.